Uranium Producer Warns of Lake Ontario Pollution

Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer, has told the Canadian nuclear regulator that its refinery might have leaked uranium, arsenic and fluorides into Lake Ontario.

The plant at Port Hope, Ontario, across the lake from Rochester and down the shore from Toronto, first refined uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been temporarily closed since July to remove contaminated soil.

A spokesman for Cameco, Lyle Krahn, said Wednesday that a computer model created for the cleanup, which is several months behind schedule, indicated that the radioactive and toxic materials have been polluting a harbor adjacent to the factory. The harbor leads directly to the lake.

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spokesman for the agency, Aurèle Gervais, said: “The Port Hope UF6 plant matter has been ongoing for some time and the harbor issue is a recent development,” using the chemical formula for uranium hexafluoride.

In a background paper prepared for the agency’s commissioners last week, its staff concluded that the potential remained for continued water pollution from the plant.

Cameco in general and the aging Port Hope refinery, which transforms mined uranium into forms suitable for electrical power reactors, have long been targets of environmental groups and the regulatory agency.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/business/worldbusiness/22pollute.html

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There is already a bad shortage of fuel.

Why not recognize that this is failed technology that is destroying our environment, and shut it down for good?

Or do you care?

Nuke rays melting the bunnies again?

We have to destroy our planet in order to save it....

Suck on that

in a sane society, a company that polluted a major lake with uranium, arsenic, and flourides would be shut down immediately and its charter revoked . . . put out of business, once and for all . . .

in 2008 America, the company will likely pay a small fine and continue to do what it does, inevitably announcing again at some time in the future that "oops, we did it again" . . . it's insanity . . .

The plant is in CANADA. I expect there will be serious consequences.

The sheeple are terrified of "Uranium" and "Arsenic" poisoning, this is one the fascists won't be able to sweep under the rug.

Stephen Harper is the most dispiriting thing to happen to our country in modern memory. I expect Cameco will get no more than a slap on the wrist and perhaps a stern letter from the evil homunculus currently haunting 24 Sussex Dr.

#43* (twice), LIEberWhore, Delay, DINOs, Hastert, Cunningham, Vitter, etc....

And it's not just us: the French, Italians and Brits are certainly experiencing "buyers remorse" and (God help us) it seems the only people who are getting it right are those in South America.

I think the time of the mongering (war, whore, take your pick), thieving parasites is about over. We've ALL had a hell of a lesson and any nation that refuses to learn deserves what they get from here on out.